Due to the increasing internationalization of the (German) Gentoo Village aka. Gentoo Summer Camp I write the retrospective in English.

At first I want to say a warm thank you to all village participants. Although only 50% were preregistered, we'd enough place for everybody and his tech. Dakra and I arrived the camp side at Friday the 2nd of August at 9am, after a 10 hours lasting nonstop trip. Now I'm sitting in front of my laptop at home looking at the photos I made and can't believe these 10 days went over so fast. It was such a inspiring time and pleasure to meet so different and interesting people.

Until day one of the event's official start we'd to rearrange the village three time, because of the planned "market place"-feeling in the middle of our villages (millliways, c-base, wireless, openmoko, etc.). But after that we'd a lot of fun while hanging/joking/fooling around, drinking some beer and watching the live streamed lectures.

Nightlife was also amazing! All these illuminated objects, like-minded people and the feeling of being an ordinary guy within this nation of geeks.

Sadly we had no merchandising stuff (anyhow thanks for your effort ian!) with us, but dertobi123's book Gentoo Linux - The Metadistribution was also good advertising for gentoo (and for itself). By the way we established a CAcert interchange base at the village, pushed gd to #2 assurer in greece and met so many people within one day without leaving the village, we can't count. Thanks to Michael "Mr. CAcert" Gühring for the posters and additional forms. And last, but not least ... thanks to dakra and his (after some hickups) well working mirror!

At Sunday we disassembled the rest of our village, drank a last beer at Milliways and left at Monday morning 1am. 12 hours later we arrived healthy but tired at Wiesbaden and loaded all of this tech stuff from the caravan to my car. Now we were almost done, ordered pizzas, recalled the last days and at 17pm I moved with Sven (our debian mascot) to Mannheim and fell instantly asleep.

After 2 days at home I already miss you all. It was such a great time and I'm looking forward to see you all at the congress in Berlin!

@-Craig-: Saturday evening? I've not a single clue what you're talking about. We laughed a lot, danced a bit, but besides ..?

@-Craig-: Saturday evening? I've not a single clue what you're talking about. We laughed a lot, danced a bit, but besides ..?

Well, the problem is, I don't remember exactly; I remember that I called you, went back to Gentoo Village and told you about the call (uhm!), and then we went back, but after that my memories consists only of some little snippets...dancing...laughing....pure FUN! People even asked me if I was on drugs, oh I was so lucky that night! But I don't know when or why I went to bed...hardcore-drinking at "Bucket" party and spending 30¤ at art and beauty on vodka MIGHT not have been the best idea I had...so I'm a bit confused about how I spent my time. Fortunately things like forgetting several hours usually don't happen to me when I'm drunken....

It has been a blast for me too... And to be honest I didn't expect anything less than that, having been to GSC2006 last summer (the expectations had already been set quite high). I was really happy to see you again guys, and those who didn't make it had better start preparing for GSC2008 .

May thanks to all of you who assured me! There's a common creations cafe (well they play cc music, so that makes it a cc cafe) in Granada (where I'm spending a few days), and I put on my assurer pin hoping that I could offer my services to FLOSS community members but unfortunately there weren't any (or didn't notice the pin... which I nonetheless consider very unlikely considering I would proudly show it off all the time :-PPPP - and NO, I didn't make any discriminations based on distros of choice ).

Many thanks to the fellow gentooers who left some food and camping equipment (cans, can opener, gas) for me to feed on after the bars had closed. I'd also like to thanks a fellow gentooer who gave me a free (as in beer, not freedom) train ticket to berlin (sorry people, i can't recall your nicks ).

I was glad to see that all equipment requirements had been met, there were plenty of power sockets and RJ-45 plugs for everyone, as well as chairs and tables... I feel bad I couldn't be of much help in that part as it would be very difficult for me to carry them from Athens. I have no excuse for bringing just one bottle of ouzo though... I'll make up for this irremissible omission next time

I'll miss you all! Keep in touch people and I'm really looking forward to joining you again in another Gentoo-themed reunion! (If you convert to debian, ubuntu, or any other distro whose first letter I wouldn't bother capitalise though, don't bother to say hi next time you see me :-DDD)

We had a lot of fun and obviously the GSC2007 in Russia was also great. Have a look at these photos.

Some of you maybe didn't realised, that there was also a plan to start a short (short as in 'battery runtime') conference. Sadly it wasn't possible because of PEBKAC. I connected to the right channel, but chose the wrong network. Obviously I'm to stupid to use irssi (maybe I should continue using x-Chat). Next time we'll have a official full time conference gurantor. _________________Gentoo Linux - Die Metadistribution

We're planning GSC for this year in Russia again. If you're planning the same, please get us in touch. Tobias, please reply my mail!

Shortly: we're planning 2 camps for this year - one at old place between Moscow and St.Petersburs, another near Orsha in Belarus.
We want to hold it on in the beginning of August, but still want to discuss dates with you, but please don't linger with answer long.

We're also planning for another Summer Camp this year in the beginning of August probably, our preparations for this event will start in late April/early May, as Tobias (the other one) is currently relocating and therefore doesn't have that much time for planning and organizing the Summer Camp this month. But we (and especially Tobias!) have a lot of exciting ideas on where to have our Camp this year and what to do at the Camp I guess he already replied to your mail, if not give him a few days - as i said he's moving into a new flat (and doesn't have internet access at home currently) _________________Ganz frisch: Praxisbuch NagiosGentoo Linux - Die Metadistribution (2. Auflage)

I'd like to notice that from Aug 08. to Aug 12. the ICMP 4 camp (proudly presented by Bits'n'Bugs and CCC Erlangen) in southern germany will take place. It would be sad (at least for me) if these events collide, since I'd like to attend to both of them.